


Adrift

by NoBaggage



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: M/M, Soft Boys, Waiting for Wayward Son
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:10:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18348059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoBaggage/pseuds/NoBaggage
Summary: I re read Carry On in anticipation of the release of Wayward Son in September. I LOVE these boys, particularly Baz (Duh?)I wanted to write something light but I never seem to be able to do that. I just needed to express SOMETHING.Maybe this is it?Maybe I'll keep going? Who knows, but it was good to get something down.





	1. Ozone

**Simon**

It’s Boxing Day. A year and a day since White Chapel and the second time I’ve been back to Watford.

The last time it had been evening. I’d come to dance with Baz at the ball after his leaving ceremony. I remember the lights strung above the courtyard, and how flagrantly handsome Baz looked in his suit. And my two left feet. Eating sandwiches in the kitchen while Baz told me off for smiling at him with crumbs falling out of my full mouth.

It's mid afternoon and colder than a witches...you know. I’m standing in the hills wearing a thick woollen coat, a scarf and boots. They're all new. Christmas presents from Baz. I think I’m still a terrible boyfriend, or at best pretty useless, but Baz seems to still wants me around. Thank Crawley. Baz is determined to improve my fashion sense. I really couldn't care but I do enjoy the hungry way he looks at me when he thinks I'm turned out well. 

There are patches of snow on the hills, but the further down you go it turns to mud and slush. My hands are shoved in my pockets and I wish I were wearing a hat. My hair is a mess from the drive. 

Baz drove me here today in a convertible vintage Aston Martin, looking like sodding James Bond, if James Bond had too-long hair that swept back in perfect waves from his forehead. It was bloody cold to have the top down, but the sun was out and no one likes to make an impression like Baz. He's obsessed with vintage cars. He has a Jag too, toff that he is. I hope he’s putting the top on the car for the return drive. It took Baz's magic to get me through the outer gates. That's as far as I wanted to go. He crossed the drawbridge and he's waiting out there somewhere, probably spelling himself into the headmaster's office, snooping. I'm not sure what he plans to do while I'm here, but he was kind and smart enough to leave me, knowing I needed some time alone for this.

It still takes some getting used to; this new softer version of Baz. He's so much smarter than me, quicker with his thoughts and words, sharper. He teases, laughs at and takes the piss out of me endlessly. We still challenge each other, fight over stupid things. I never would have guessed that underneath it all he’s thoughtful and more sensitive that I could ever have imagined. He smells better than any man has a right to. I used to think that scent, hints of cedar and bergamot, was his soap. Now I know that’s just Baz. I don’t think it has anything to do with him being a vampire.

I don’t look down the hill toward Mummers House. I don’t look at the White Chapel either. I'm not ready for that. I shiver in the cold.

I think about Ebb, her dirty face and her messy blonde hair, and the faded Watford school jumpers she wore. I think about how she was one of the most powerful of all mages. How she turned her back on them all and their politics, the Mage’s revolution, the wars with the dark creatures. She kept to herself and her memories, tending to her goats. For all the good it did her. She was still young. She had a lot of life to live.

Someone has thought to bronze her staff. It’s a nice touch, lying at an angle, alongside her resting place. I dust away some dirty snow and place my posy beside the headstone. It’s a crush of colourful wildflowers, I don’t know the names, but I bought them from a street stall in London. They don’t look like they came from a hothouse, but I guess they must have. They look more like the sort of thing that you might gather from a walk in a field or a hike through the woods, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Anyway, I think she’d like them. I also leave her a packet of Hobnobs. Well, of course I open them and pretend we are eating together. I have to eat hers, obviously. I usually took biscuits when I visited her. Back when she’d been my friend. When I belonged here. At Watford.

Watford.

Now I didn’t really belong anywhere. None of the courses I’ve taken at university have stuck or lit a passion inside me. After seven or eight years knowing _exactly_ what I was put on this earth for, now I don’t have much of a purpose, other than being your everyday nineteen-year old git, a Normal with a tail and wings. 

Except maybe I belong with Baz? I still think about him obsessively. The things we do together, all of it, not just that messing about boyfriend stuff, although kissing and touching him warms me from my cheeks to my toes. Being with Baz makes me feel good. Better than good, but I struggle to tell him how I feel, what he means to me, or to know how to move us forward. If that's what he wants.

_Use your words, Simon._

I’m working on it.

My counsellor said I should concentrate on smaller, manageable things, like _shall I eat pizza or roast chicken for supper_ , or _shall we go to the pub after lunch,_ rather than all-consuming existential problems, like where I fall on the queer spectrum.

Ebb is buried in the outer grounds of Watford, on the side of the hills. In springtime it will be a field of soft grasses and bluebells. You can see her barn in the distance. There’s a sole ancient oak behind the headstone that is a mass of bare branches right now, throwing shadows over the snow like hundreds of bony fingers. 

The Mage is buried here too, down in the catacombs with the other heads of Watford. I’m not ready to go there. I suppose Baz might be there now, visiting his mum, thinning out the rat population.

None of the students have returned yet from Christmas break. The warmth from the afternoon sun is weak. Some of Ebb’s goats graze nearby. Their winter coats are shaggy and they bleat occasionally, nosing away bits of snow to nibble at whatever they find underneath. I wonder who cares for them now?

I don’t understand why Ebb died that night. I suppose it had something to do with the strength of her magical power. He wanted it, the Mage. He wanted her power. In the end my power was all the Mage wanted from me too.

But he’d said I wasn’t the Chosen One, I was the wrong vessel, and that he couldn’t fix me.

And even though all I was trying to do was stop the madness, I killed him. Or Penny did. Or we both did.

I don’t think about how much more peaceful my life has become since his death.

Or rudderless.

I have less to worry about on a day-by-day basis, that’s for sure.

I sniff a few times, but it’s because the wind is chilled. I’m not crying, despite the wetness running down my cheeks.

And that’s when it starts to happen. 

At first I think it’s the wind, a shiver running over my skin, beneath my coat. But although my skin pebbles, the sensation is electric, not cold. I smell…I can’t describe it.

_Use your words, Simon!_

Is it ozone? It’s like that smell in the air, just before a storm.

It begins. Inside me. It starts off in my stomach, like a reaction to a really bad curry, except then it becomes something else. Something bigger. Something all consuming. Like it's inside my blood, spreading outwards, coursing through my entire body. Like lightning. Lightning inside me, spilling outside of me, running like a current over my skin, tingling almost to the point of pain. It’s white, blinding, terrifying in a way. A strange taste pools in my mouth. I thought it was gone, but now that it's happening, it seems like it was always inevitable. It's filling me up like a fountain bubbling to life, like an electrical tower being turned on for the first time. A buzzing throb, a strobing flashing light. For a moment I think I'm going to be sick. Everything sways. I've never been on a ship on a rough sea but this is what I imagine it would feel like. I remember seeing that film about Willy Wonka and the kid who blew up like a giant blueberry; it's like that. Maybe I'm going to explode? Except, I look down at my hand and it looks like it always does; rough pale skin, a few freckles, chipped nails, a bit of ragged skin on my thumb where I've chewed it. Baz is always knocking my hand out of my mouth; he says it's disgusting.

Then it stops. Sort of. I feel it. I'm standing still and strong. Powerful. My spine straightens and my shoulders go back. I just know, I'm full of unknown depths, waiting to be drawn upon. I know what it is. Except something's different. It’s not quite like before. I’m not going off. I'm not out of control.

I’m glowing. On the inside.

My magic.

For a moment I’m blindingly happy. I think of Baz’s joy when he finds out. But then I freeze.

I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want the burden. I don’t want to be reminded of the toll, the pressure of being the Chosen One, of everyone expecting so much of me, of knowing what I am, and knowing that I will fall short, I’ll never live up to their expectations. I’ll fail. Again. I know it.

I. Don’t. Want. It. I sway with the force of all that I don’t want.

It doesn’t matter. It’s part of me. How could I have believed it was gone forever? I sense the strength of it, the enormity of the power coursing through me. I was so wrong. I was never a Normal. How could I have been?

But I’m not going off. 

Incredible.

I honestly feel like I can hold it back. Not only that, I can _contain_ it.

Is it because I’m older? Is it because of what happened a year ago?

I squeeze my eyes tight. I don’t even need to say a spell out loud. 

I imagine an enormous and heavy wooden chest, deep inside me. I push the white-hot power, this unwanted part of me. I push and I push. I _force_ the power inside the opened chest. I use my mind to reach for the lid and I _press down_. I concentrate like I never remember concentrating in my life. Slowly, magically, the lid closes. I create heavy metal locks and snap them in place. I imagine thick rope and coil it around the chest, over and over.

There. Secure.

I _know_ it’s there, but it’s _contained_. It’s almost like the heartburn I get when I eat too much Yorkshire pudding. The weight of it, like it could rise up my stomach and escape, unless I concentrate. So I do.

Before, it would have come leaking out of me, coils of it running down my arms, escaping from me, burning, beyond my control.

Something’s changed. I don’t want to examine it too closely. Just so long as I can keep it locked away. Hidden.

Then it won’t be a burden on me, and not to anyone I care about. Penny. Baz.

I know that Baz is sad I have lost my magic, but honestly, it never brought any of us any good. It almost sucked all the magic out of the British Isles.

I calm my breathing and open my eyes. Control. So this is what it's like.

The sun is almost gone and the air has turned bitter. The hills and valleys cast long shadows. I turn my head and see an elegant but warmly-dressed young man walking up the hill toward me. Even at a distance you can tell he's long-limbed and tall. Something is dangling from one of his hands. It's so cold now that I can see his breaths puff out like smoke. By the way he's tilting his head I know he's got a devilish smile on his face, and he's about to give me a serve.

“You really are hopeless, Snow,” he calls out.

When he reaches me he pulls a snug woollen hat over the mess of my windswept hair, over my ears. He pats my cheeks and I stare into his pretty grey eyes. Baz teases the fingertips of one of his gloves with his teeth and pulls it off. He drops his hand into my pocket, tangling his fingers with mine.

"Don't call me that.

His breath is cool against the side of my head. "Simon." He presses a kiss to my temple.

He doesn’t sense it. Or smell it. And I well know, vampires have a wicked sense of smell.

My relief overwhelms my guilt. I’m protecting him. I’m protecting us. This is for the best. I know it.

He turns pressing our chests together. I know he’s attracted to the warmth from my body. In these private moments, when it’s just the two of us, he’s usually sweet. Baz murmurs, “All right, love? It’s getting late. Do you need more time?”

I give him a tight smile and reach up to press a kiss to his cool lips. “I’m done. Let’s bugger off home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Rinabina who always tells me to just. get. it. down.


	2. Heat

**Baz**

I’ve done it. I’ve finally sodding done it. I’ve set myself on fire. Not that it was hard. Perhaps even inevitable.

The flames lick up my body until I’m swallowed whole, surrounded by an all-consuming heat. It’s gentler than I thought it would be, softer. It sinks into me, liquefying my bones. I thought there’d be more pain. I thought I’d scream and writhe in agony. I’m surprised to find that I quite like it.

One gritty eye opens. My head reverberates with a dull throb. That would be the gin.

Simon Snow is wrapped around me like newsprint on a packet of fish and chips.

We’re both very naked. I smile and shift a little, just so I can indulge some more in that sensation of skin on skin. I am so very, very warm.

I have one hand resting on the back of his neck; the other is drifting over the peach of his arse. Snow has the peachiest arse. I refrain from wrapping my fingers around the tail. Snow is self conscious about the tail. I still tease him about it, but the only time I get away with playing with it is when he's close. Then, if I stroke it, he comes like a train. Does my ego no harm at all.

Instead of misbehaving, I move a finger like a metronome through the short spiky hair on his nape. I slide my hand up and tangle fingers in his tawny curls. Snow makes a soft sound, released on a breath (mouth breather) against my collarbone. My whole body breaks into gooseflesh.

I’m so in love with him I think I might be ill.

Of course, that could also be the gin. Crowley, what a night. Despite the aftermath of what we had to deal with from last year, Snow and I have acquired the basics of how to party like there’s no tomorrow, even though now there is, a tomorrow I mean. We are embracing university life and all the freedoms it bestows. We deserve it after the shit we’ve put up with from the Insidious Humdrum and the Mage.

“Time?”

I grab for my phone on the bedside and squint at the screen. “Almost eight. We’d better get moving.”

Snow grunts noncommittally in response.

I catch sight of two knotted and used condoms on the floor beside the bed. My boyfriend is such an animal. Lush and hazy memories from our wanton abandon last night outweigh my disgust at his lack of decorum. I can’t keep the smile from my face. I grab my wand which is next to my phone, flick it and murmur, " _With a little help from my friends_ ", whisking evidence of our lovemaking away.

I don’t want to disentangle myself. Snow’s delicious heat makes me feel alive. Really and fully alive. I’m aware that’s a complete ruse, but I don’t want to examine my own existential dilemma right now. I want to enjoy waking up in his arms.

Dankworth and Culpepper are expecting me at the library in an hour. They’re a couple of smarmy bastards, but after me they are the highest achievers in our class. There’s something about me that keeps them on edge; I let them believe it’s my superior intellect. We came together for group assessments. Our Macroeconomics paper is due later today and we need to pull our separate research into something cohesive and legible. 

Reluctantly I withdraw from Simon’s smooth skin. He whimpers in protest, and I kiss the corner of his mouth. Then, because I can't help myself, I press two more slow kisses to my favourite freckles, one on his cheek, and another on his neck.

“Don’t you have class?”

Simon rolls his face into the pillow and his answer comes through a filter of cotton and feathers. “Midday.” He grabs the other pillow and curls himself around it.

Jealous of a pillow. I am a hopeless case.

“You’ll go though, won’t you?” I cringe the moment the words leave my mouth. Mother hen is not the role I want to play in this relationship. I can’t help it. I’m worried about him.

Snow rolls away from me. “Probably,” he says, voice croaky and unused.

“Well, I’ll come round, after we get the paper in, shall I? After 4?”

He turns back to face me. His hair is an absolute show and his face is creased from the pillow. The quilt drops a bit, exposing his chest, the paleness of him, the protruding bones of his shoulders. And his damn freckles and moles. Barely awake Simon Snow is devastatingly attractive and I am an addict. I heat up, even though his skin isn’t physically against mine. Who says he isn’t magic anymore?

As I stand alongside the bed and I cannot help my reaction to him. Simon’s eyes are only half open and full of sleep. Fluttering his stubby lashes he casts his eyes up and down my naked body. He purses his mouth into a kiss and winks at me in response to my question.

It takes all my strength not to fold myself back into bed and lose myself with him for a few more hours, but I have to finish this paper, it’s worth half my final grade, and I can’t let the chaps down.

I bend and kiss him once more, then I turn and wiggle my arse a little as I head to the bathroom to shave and shower. Not having Bunce in the apartment is quite liberating. I’m something of an exhibitionist.

Showers are an appalling place for the mind to wander…and stew things over.

There are pros and cons for Bunce being in America with her boyfriend. Freeing as it might be, I also can’t rely on her to help keep Snow on track when I’m not with him.

I know that there is an 80% chance that when I come back this afternoon, Snow will have made it no further than his sofa, likely surrounded by empty packets of crisps, chocolate Hobnobs and a half empty bottle of Fanta. He misses quite a few of his classes, says it doesn’t matter. I wish it did.

Unless I promise him a night out, fuelled with alcohol and mindless fun, he rarely leaves the apartment.

I know that he has a lot to come to terms with. I hope that he is making some ground with the bloody psychologist on all those Skype calls, because he isn’t divulging too much to me.

I’m fairly certain that Snow is depressed. It’s understandable. He lost his magic. He (maybe) killed his mentor with Bunce’s help. He arguably saved the Magickal world. It’s a lot to come to deal with before you’re (probably) twenty. It bothers me that I don’t even know his birthday.

I know that Simon Snow loves me. Of that I have no doubt. But he doesn’t know if he is gay or not. Which is ridiculous and typical Snow. I don’t think it matters. For sure he isn’t straight. Does he need to label it?

The hardest thing for me, is despite this abundance of obsessive love that I have for him…

It’s not enough.

I can’t make Simon Snow happy. Not truly happy. Not when I’m not with him.

The knowledge that my love isn’t enough…

Fuck it. We’ll deal with it. Later. Eventually.

My hair is wet. I slick it back in the way I know annoys the shit out of Snow, and head out to spell away his wings and tail. Time to face the day.


	3. Tactics

**Simon**

“What’s wrong?”

In panic I cram another scone into my mouth (thank magic) and reply with a full mouth, spitting crumbs down the front of my shirt. “Wha?”

“Is it Baz?”

I swallow hard, feeling a lump in my throat that has nothing to do with the scone. “Whatcha mean?” My skin is starting to flush. I leak the tiniest measure of magic to pale my skin tone back to normal. I still can’t believe I can just visualise something and magic it to happen. It’s wicked. Being in control of my magic is new and exciting. It also works faster than my words, which is handy for someone like me. It’s all a bit addictive really. Most of my life my magic was such a burden, I’m starting to get what all the fuss is about. My mouth tingles with the taste of using it.

I’m pretty sure Penny can’t sense my returned power through the computer but she senses…something. Why does she have to be so damn perceptive about me?

“Is everything alright with you two?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

“Has he been hanging out with Nicodemus and Fiona again? Getting wasted?”

I shrug. “Well…”

“Simon, you are driving me _mad_. Tell me what’s going on or I’ll fly home right now.”

I squint at the screen. Penny looks different in America. For one thing she’s taken to wearing her hair out, unbound. It frames her face in a wild cloud of curl. To be honest it takes up most of the screen, her face is only a small brown circle framed by colour. Rainbow. That’s what her hair looks like now, all the colours of a rainbow.

I go for distraction. “What’s that on your neck?” 

It looks like a love bite. Go Micah. She must have forgotten to spell it away before she started our Skype call. I know about love bites because I gave Baz one on his inner thigh last week. Go me. 

Flustered Penny is something new. Usually it’s me, trying and failing to impress upon her or Baz the need for urgency and never being able to find the right words or argument. She pats her hair so that it covers her neck. When she speaks it’s with a slight stammer and a clearing of her throat. “W-we’re not talking about _me,_ Simon. It’s not like you to keep secrets.”

It’s not.

I don’t think I’ve done it before really. Except for when I decided to help Baz find out about his mum, and even then I still needed Penny’s help eventually. Even when Baz and I finally started being _us,_ it wasn’t a secret for long.

“Are you passing your classes?”

I shrug.

“Are you _attending_ your classes?”

“Sometimes.”

A sort of realisation passes behind Penny’s eyes and her expression softens. She’s wrong, but I’m just not ready to tell her what’s really going on and I don’t know why. I tell Penny and Baz everything. I just need some time. It’s a new concept for me: time. There’s no threat to the world of Mages, no danger to people close to me. Surely I’m allowed a beat to work out what the return of my magic means, and how I feel about it. I’m just not ready to let them in.

Penny’s voice is kind. “I’ll book a flight today. I can be home tomorrow night.”

Crowley. She thinks I’m depressed. They both do. Perhaps I was for a few months, but right now I crave a bit less scrutiny for once in my life. They’re both too observant.

“There’s no _need_ , Penny. Enjoy your time with Micah. Everything is ticking along here. There’s no rush. For anything.”

Penny stares at me through my laptop, chewing the inside of her cheek, trying to work me out.

The door to the flat bursts open. There’s a door knob-sized dent in the wall that Baz has made from repeatedly doing this. Wanker loves to make an entrance, or try and catch me out doing something I shouldn’t on the sofa.

“Honey, I’m home,” he says, low-voiced and flirty, a wicked grin lifting half his mouth. He notices what I’m doing and sidles up to me on the three seater. He smells like London and cool outside air. “Bunce,” he says by way of greeting. “It appears someone has gone a bit vampiric on your neck.”

“Honestly, you two.” Penny fiddles with her hair again and blows out a frustrated breath. “Okay, well I guess I’ll check in with you in a couple of days. If you need anything, ping me, orright?”

I see a new idea blink to attention in her head a second before I end the chat. “Hey,” she says quickly, the plan taking root and blooming. “You’ve both got semester break coming up, yes?”

Baz and I look at each other and then turn to the screen, nodding.

“Why don’t you fly out here?”

“America,” says Baz, the way someone might have said, _bird shit_.

“There’s so much space, so much sunshine, everyone says _have a nice day_. We could go on a road trip, the three of us, four if I can convince Micah. Oh _do_ come. I miss you both. It could be great for Simon to…you know…clear your head.”

I turn to look at Baz and I’m surprised that he’s not sneering at all. In fact he fails to dim the hopeful light in his eye. And it’s clear this is no spontaneous impulse on Penny’s part. They’ve hatched it together. It’s an intervention. Their way of spurning me into some kind of activity that doesn’t involve binge watching TV and eating fast food. Recognition passes through Baz’s expression when he realises I’m onto him, followed by a pleading look that I find hard to resist.

My hand is reaching to shut the laptop and I groan. “I’ll think about it. Talk tomorrow or the next day, Penny.”

“We’re only worried about you,” Penny squeaks out before I end the call.

I face Baz sitting next to me on the sofa, and open my mouth to admonish him for attempting to _manage_ me. Before I can speak, he captures my lips in a rather lovely and soft kiss. My cross words get lost in his mouth and I enjoy reconnecting with him through the remarkable power of our kissing. I’ll never tire of kissing Baz. When we draw back from each other I can’t keep the smile from my face.

“Hi love.” The cool air from Baz’s mouth mingles with the warmth from mine. 

I get it. Baz knows me well. If we nut this out now I’ll probably dismiss it out of hand. He wants me to mull it over for a while. Think through the pros and cons. I mean, I guess a holiday together would be nice. I’ve never even been on a holiday. Ever.

Baz looks around at the small pile of mess on the coffee table and continues his attempts to change the subject. “What have you been binging today?”

“ _Fleabag_. Both seasons.”

“Oh,” he says, delighted. “Discovered anything?”

Baz thinks it’s hilarious that I don’t know how to describe where I am on the sexual spectrum.

“I still don’t think I’m homosexual, but I’m definitely queer. I fancied them both, Fleabag and the hot priest. A lot. Her more. Probably.”

This is new for me. Being confident enough to tease Baz in this way. I see my statement sink into him and bother him a lot, even though he arranges his features to look disinterested and disdainful. I know his tells. The slow swallow. The barely noticeable crease of skin between his brows. His grey eyes blink in quick succession. He’s bothered all right.

With an elbow on the back of the sofa, I let my fingers slip through his hair. I adore how silky his hair is and how it feels against my fingertips. Baz is holding himself very still, trying not to react as I lean in to his ear. “She’s more my type.” I move my lips to press a kiss just below his ear. Baz shivers. “Tall.” Another kiss. “Pale skin, dark hair.” I drift my lips along the sharp edge of his jaw. His body relaxes as he realises I’m taking the piss. “Fast-talking.” One of my hands trails from his shoulder and slowly down his arm until I tangle our fingers. “Long. Limbs.”

Baz makes a noise that isn’t quite human, and turns, kissing me, deep and possessive, just how I like it.

We don’t need to eat dinner, do we? If I’m lucky Baz stopped in a few darkened laneways, happening upon some rats or a fox on the way home. He angles me onto my back, pushes me down against the sofa cushions and stretches on top of me. I’m thinking about moving us back to our bed when he breaks away, distracted. I grab his elbow, trying to pull him back, but Baz sits up straighter and glances again at the coffee table. He frowns. 

Shit.

“Snow,” his voice is slow with dawning realisation. “Where the fuck did those sour cherry scones come from?”


End file.
